This photograph is a long standing favourite of mine. It was taken in 1998 I think and was part of my opening exhibition at the Leonard Metcalf Gallery in Katoomba in 2000.

I took it with the Linhof I talked about last week. This fern is off the main track in an approach track to a canyon on Newnes Plateau. One of my favourite places to explore.

I put this photograph in my survey for possible postcards. A hundred people later, finally someone likes it. My favourite photograph virtually comes last in my popularity survey. What’s wrong with my judgement? Or is it that I strive for something that the masses just don’t understand? Masses? Most to be precise.

You should have seen the excitement the moment that one person choose it. I was brimming.

This is what a colour photograph is to me. This one is a symphony of greens. I had a fanciful idea that I could use these to promote the Greens.

Years later, it is still a favourite. So do subtle and sublime. Framed, it hangs proudly in my studio.

It’s film, Fuji Prova to be precise. Never liked Velvia, the film that all the other landscape photographers love for its abstraction and intensification of colour. It still is covereted and collected for its inevitable end of manufacturing. Provia feels more natural to me. It has an accuracy in the greens that I adore and appreciate.

The 8 x 10 I recently acquired has a project developing. Colour, large format, shot on Provia. Picking up where I left off. I think it will be rather slow to create. Slower still to show. Next is to save for some film. And start taking it with me. A few spare days in the Tarkine May see the first shots with it.

The intimate landscape is a term Elliot Porter used to describe his landscape scenes that did not include skies or horizons.

They show the beauty in the detail.

His book ‘Chaos’ illustrates these beautifully. But my favourite book of his is “In wildness, lies the preservation of the world.” A book about Walden by Thoreau is used to provide the words that he illustrates with his pictures.

Porter was my second major influence after Dombrovskis. Interestingly Peter also named Porter as an influence.

Here though, my influence is modern art. The division of the frame and the use of a circle. Drawing on abstract art I wish to push further, away from chaos and intimacy. Well, that was the goal.

This boy and I couldn’t talk to each other very well due to the barriers of our different languages and his inherent shyness. But we did manage to find a way to communicate.

After gaining his and his mother’s permission I listened to him as we communicated. I watched his reactions as I took and showed him the photographs I was taking. I was listening with my eyes to his reactions. We were soon laughing and smiling.

I was intently listening to myself. My every feeling. Listening to my body. Essentially listening to my intuition.

This photograph came so easily. I believe it’s because of this listening.

To do this you must relax, be sensitive. If you are so absorbed with the task at hand you can’t listen properly. You need to be unconsciously competent with your photography.

How do you listen? Can you listen with your eyes? Can you tune into yourself and your own intuition? These skills are worth practicing.

I am putting together a cultural tour of Namibia to photograph the people. Travelling in the north through the farms, stopping by at a wildlife park along the way and finishing up at Victoria Falls. I would love to photograph more people.

Herb Asherman, who ran our Portrature Masterclass last year, while he was here kept saying “It is what it is.” It was his way of reminding himself the value of surrendering to things that were out of his control.

They are powerful words. The sentiment behind them is even more powerful.

There are so many things in this world that we can’t control. It is really the overwhelming majority of world. We have such a small influence and control of our little world.

I see it so often in people. They get upset and stressed over things that are really outside of thier control.

I am as guilty of it as everyone else. So I am not pointing the finger. I am reminding myself to let go, to relax and to let life happen.

There is no point getting stressed if the light isn’t right, the weather isn’t perfect, that I can’t find anything stimulating to photograph. What if I don’t feel like creating art? It is what it is.

It can be hard to switch off our thoughts and truely immerse our selves in a sense of place. So many thoughts running through our heads. That’s even before we start musing on compositions or projects. I love getting lost in thought.

Yet, being a creative means feeling more and working from instinct. Well, initially anyway. Hard. Yes, very hard. But a worthy goal.

Leaving the camera in the bag for a while and letting your body feel, your eyes see, and your heart connect is very worthwhile. What is country telling you? What are you feeling? What is pulling you? What are you attracted too? A good time to wander with no fixed plans or ideas.

This tree caught my attention. It tugged at me. It sucked me in, and half an hour latter and some photographs I emerged again. Hard to remember exactly what I was doing. I think I tried to circumnavigate this beautiful tree searching for clean backgrounds.

A bird flies through and you snap away. Trying desperately to hold the composition.

Now, I can look back and analyse the image. Figure it out. And work out how to milk it into a print. If I pull the highlights to white it starts to fail. Rules get tossed out. Mist is like that. Doesn’t like photographic rules.

Continually comparing your creative work to other creatives is a recipe for disastrous consequences. Unfortunately it is way too easy on social media such as Instagram or Facebook.

When we compare our creative work we often loose momentum and start to feel lousy about our own work. We fault find. We criticise. We look for errors. We loose sight of our own voice.

When you look at the work of others, spend time finding the work that truely moves you. The art that really engages your emotions and stirs your feelings. Figure out why it does. Use it as inspiration or as learning.

At all costs avoid comparisons with your own. Try to remember your work is yours and theirs is theirs. It’s not better or worse. Art and photography isn’t a competition or a race. There is no first or best.

Art is a medium of expression and communication. Concentrate on on expressing yourself. Concentrate on making work you are pleased with.

After ten days of twice-daily practise with my medium format digital camera, I am finally settling with it. My fingers are finding their way around easily. The buttons have become familiar, as have the dials. I might even start using the aperture ring next.

I am using it like a view camera, leaving the viewfinder off it and religiously putting it on the tripod to use. The flip up, down and sideways screen makes it easy to use the main screen as my only aid.

It’s when the camera gets out of the way that I can fully immerse myself in the creative task at hand of making art. This is so important. I have to practise using it until it becomes one with me. It’s like when the paint brush becomes an extension of your arm and fingers. I need to become so familiar with it, that it almost disappears.

Bruce Barnham describes a camera cuddle to his students; which I have been doing since with mine. Keep the camera out. Use it regularly and practise until controlling it becomes second nature. On the lounge even, or out on your veranda. Keep changing the aperture and learning what your equipment does. Practise taking well exposed and focused images; rather than on creating beautiful works of art. You want to become unconsciously competent with it. It takes time. It can’t be rushed. You just have to keep at it until you get it.

Remember learning to drive a car. You sat next to others and watched and thought “that’s easy”. You really didn’t know what was required.

Later, once you started learning, you realised you didn’t know how hard it would be. But slowly you learnt. You did everything consciously. Everything was thought out. Planned. You did things in the order you were taught.

Now years later, you can drive a car and chat to your passengers or think about the amazing photographs you will create. You probably can’t remember changing gears or using the indicator. You now have your own way of doing things. You have now progressed to unconscious competence. This is your goal with your camera.

The lesson is to practise until you reach this point.

On Tuesday, I felt this way with the camera. The light and mist were nearly perfect. The mood was gorgeous. My emotional response to my country soared. Without the thoughts of using my camera I relaxed and engaged with my emotions. The photographs flowed. I was lucky enough to share this with Susan. What a wonderful day.

When it’s like this, the images flow and speak for themselves. I hope you enjoy one of the results.

Bombo Quarry was always full of romanticism, as it was a little Mecca for very hard rock climbs in the eighties. The hip and famous crowd climbed there. The climbers from the Illawarra and the Gong. Names like Fret still ring in my head.

Basalt columns are enticing to climb on. The lines (routes) are so clearly delineated. Finger cracks, jambing and wide stemming. That sort of climbing never settled with me.

Now the infamous climbing cliff is fenced off. Claw wrote about how it had been taken over by a shit farm. A human waste processing plant might be a more politicaly correct term in the modern age. The climbs that made history for a short time now forgotten behind a barbed wire fence.

A dad and his two kids ride past and he makes a dad joke. Checking in with his son to see if he had flatulence. The three laugh and ride on and punch through the wave of smell.

I find the place harsh. A little desert next to the ocean. Hordes of tourists visit daily with hundreds of cameras. There are always plenty of tripods reminding me that landscape photography is a growth industry.

On days the swell is large, the place becomes deafening with pounding waves crashing on the basalt shore.

It’s no surprise that I find this place difficult to connect with and even harder to photograph. But that doesn’t stop me trying.

This morning we were at Minnamurra Rainforest Walk. Stunning. It was raining, but not enough to use the umbrella I carried. Yes, my camera did get wet. There was a fair bit of cleaning the lens and moving to be under some inconsiderate drips. Well, an inch here and there made all the difference.

I have always wanted to go when the weather and light was being considerate. It was almost perfect. There were lots of shiny leaves. If I was shooting colour I would have removed them with the polarizer, but in monochrome, they are just lovely.

I am reminded of Gordon Undy's project of "looking through". love his shot of the turtles looking through the branches. It is a lovely theme worth pursuing: looking through.

I really love depth and dark black trees that loom into the foreground. They invite you to peek through them to see something else. You will probably notice it is a common theme in my work. Depth is a beautiful subject and one well worth pursuing in its own right.

One day I will make it there in thick mist and be mesmerised.

I was really impressed that National Parks made a point to us to stay on the boardwalk. Wandering off to take that photograph destroys the visual beauty of the place. It harms the fragile ecosystem. I am horrified by how many photographers think it is their right to leave footprints and tripod holes in fragile environments. To wander whereever they like, in their goal of getting the best shot.

Mea Culpa poses in the most gorgeous soft light, to give me one of my favourite nude photographs. An elderly couple bought it, telling me how hard it is to find tasteful and classical nudes for their walls.

We were running a shoot for photographers in a very small garage. The owners, being artists, had painted the whole place white. White ceilings, floors and walls, of course, and had even furnished it with white furniture. Low ceilings.

So here, one softbox sent light out bouncing aound everywhere and showed me something I hadn’t seen before. How well bounced light can fill and envelope a beautiful body.

Always paint your studio white. To stop the bouncing, you use black flags.

Looking at this photograph for years has lead me back to one of my teaching points, that details intrigue the viewer. Try to imagine the photograph without that gorgeous finger and lovely nail, or without the tangle of hair. It would quickly fall apart.

It's often these details that I don’t consciously notice at the time of creation that make the artwork stand the test of time. Hopefully, my subconscious did notice them.

My best artistic work always revolves around my loves. The passion for my subject shines through rerentlessly. It glows. It shines.

I hear it all the time from my photographic students. “I don’t know what to photograph, Len.” Photograph what you love, is always my reply.

It can be quite a journey figuring out what that is. I discovered my passions through trial and error. Things you think you will enjoy sometimes fall flat, while others that are unsuspecting jump up and grab your passions.

At first I thought I just loved nature. But it turned out to be way more complex than that. Through my work, I slowly I figured out I prefer forests over open spaces. Canyons over cliff tops. I worked out I prefer nature to hug me and wrap its arms around me. I worked out that my feelings were way more complex than I first assumed.

My bias towards photography that is about my passions comes from a positive outlook on the world. Wanting to bring and share beauty with others. I am sure that making art about what you love is a very small section of the art world. So that may not be you.

So, perhaps a better answer would be to explore your art and your creativity around your passions.

Ask yourself, what really stirs your emotions? What do you really connect with? Follow them with gay abandon and see where they lead you. You don’t have to know what they are. You don’t need the answer before you start. Let it come through your work.